We’re delighted to see that Mrs Jekyll by Emma Glass has been longlisted for the 2025 Gordon Burn Prize. Other nominees include Rita Bullwinkel’s Headshot and Jenni Fagan’s Ootlin. The winner will receive £10,000 and the chance to undertake a writing retreat at Gordon Burn’s cottage in Berwickshire.

According to the New Writing North website, the Gordon Burn Prize ‘recognises literature that is forward-thinking and fearless in its ambition and execution, often playing with style, pushing boundaries, crossing genres or challenging readers’ expectations.’ The prize was founded in 2012 by New Writing North, Faber & Faber and the Gordon Burn Trust.

The shortlist will be announced on 6 March 2025 and the winner will be awarded later that month in Gordon Burn’s home city, Newcastle upon Tyne, with support from Newcastle University and NCLA, the Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts.

Read more about the longlist here.

Congratulations to our author Ben Myers who will collaborate with Warner Music Entertainment and production company Class 5 on an adaptation of his latest novel Rare Singles, marking his first feature film screenplay. The Gallows Pole producer Nickie Sault is set to produce the project under her new Sheffield-based indie label ‘Class 5’ with the aim of nurturing new and working-class talent.  Rare Singles is set in Chicago and Scarborough and tells a story of unlikely friendships, second chances and soul music. Warner Music Entertainment is set to produce alongside Class 5.

Pan Macmillan has snapped up Motherfakerin a 48-hour pre-empt, tipped as “the hilariously funny and deeply moving début book club novel” by Anna Brook-Mitchell, a BAFTA-winning comedy writer and actor.

Pan Fiction will publish Motherfaker in hardback in early 2026 as a super-lead launch. Publishing director Katie Loughnane pre-empted UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, from Jemima Forrester in her first acquisition since joining Pan Fiction last June. German rights have been acquired at auction by dtv and Hungarian rights sold to Libri.

Motherfaker tells the story of Barri Brown, “a rebel in a smock dress who has spent years slaving away as an English teacher in Guernsey, covering for colleagues with kids”, Pan Macmillan said. Desperate to travel and start over somewhere new, Barri’s only chance at getting away while still being paid is to pretend she’s having a baby. So she tells the school she’s pregnant, orders seven bumps on the internet and sets the wheels in motion for her great pregnancy heist. How hard could it be?

Brook-Mitchell said: “The moment I met Katie, I knew she was the perfect person to be given custody of Motherfaker. I’m so excited to be embarking on my novel-writing career with the wonderful team at Pan Macmillan and I can’t wait for readers to meet Barri—a character who is wholly and unapologetically herself.”

Loughnane said: “After reading the first few pages of Anna’s novel, I knew that I had to be the editor to publish it. I was hooked in by the genius concept of a pregnancy heist, and Barri’s unconventional journey to a paid year off work kept me turning the pages, but what I loved the most was seeing her character grow over the course of the novel—even if her belly didn’t.

“This novel is feisty, fresh and funny but also a nuanced exploration of being ‘childfree by choice’ in a world where society still views motherhood as a woman’s primary role. Anna Brook-Mitchell is a hugely exciting new talent in fiction and we already have ambitious plans in the works to launch her début novel in 2026.”

Jemima Forrester said: “I couldn’t be more thrilled to have found Anna and Barri the perfect UK home at Pan Macmillan. This hilarious novel both tickled me and touched my heart, and I can’t wait for readers to discover it. I know it’s in the safest, most passionate and most ambitious hands with Katie and the team at Pan Mac. Being Katie’s first acquisition in her new role only adds to the excitement.”

The Borough Press has plucked British rights to Dandelion is Dead by debut novelist Rosie Storey, with a trio of other territories snapped up in advance of Frankfurt Book Fair, along with a TV option.

Jo Thompson, commissioning editor at The Borough Press, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Jemima Forrester . There were pre-empts in North America (by Jen Monroe at Berkley), Italy (by Neri Pozza) and Germany (in an overnight bid by dtv). There was a further pre-empt from BAFTA, Emmy and Oscar-winning See-Saw Films—the production company behind streaming hits “Slow Horses” and “Heartstopper”—which acquired the rights to adapt the novel for TV.

The novel centres on Poppy who, six months after her older sister’s Dandelion’s death, is still numb with grief. Dandelion was impulsive and wild, always pushing Poppy to live more vibrantly, and so, when Poppy finds unanswered messages from a man called Jake on Dandelion’s old dating app, she replies. Poppy decides to meet up with Jake and they “have quite incredible chemistry and can’t wait to see each other again”.

Thompson said: “I fell immediately in love with Jake and Poppy. There’s an addictive, emotional power to Rosie Storey’s writing which allows her to be both deadly funny and quite heartbreaking. It’s a love story, but light balances against dark at every turn: boy meets girl, chemistry meets dishonesty, grief meets lust… For me, this is the perfect book for anyone who loves reading Meg Mason, Coco Mellors or Dolly Alderton.”

Storey is from the south of England and had a 15-year career in tech before leaving to try to finish her first novel. She lives in Hackney and currently works as a freelance copywriter and writing coach. She said: “Poppy and Jake are moving through a muddle of grief, desire, dating and delusion towards the truth of who they really are. I’ve spent more time in this fictional world over the past few years than I have in my own reality.”

Hannah Stowe has won the Adventure Travel award in this year’s Banff Centre Mountain Book Competition.

Move Like Water is an exploration of the human relationship with the sea, the powerful impression it has made on our culture, and the terrible damage we have inflicted upon its ecosystems. It was longlisted for the 2024 Wainwright Prize.

Jury member Tony Whittome said of the book:

“The visceral power of the sea and its hold on all who immerse themselves in its world are conjured with wonder in this beautifully written memoir. Exploring it through her own remarkable story as a mariner and marine biologist, and sharing with us hardships, dangers and accidents but above all her passion for the sea, Hannah Stowe shows us a sea-scape we might think we know but don’t. Featuring such emblematic sea creatures as the whale, the albatross and the humble but extraordinary barnacle, this is a siren song in vivid, exacting prose.”

Move Like Water was published by Granta in the UK and Tin House in North America. Hannah’s upcoming book, She, the Sea will be published in 2026.

The Borough Press (HarperCollins) has won the rights to Imani Thompson’s blistering and addictive debut novel Honey, about a PhD student at Cambridge University who develops a compulsion for murder.

Commissioning editor Jo Thompson acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, from Nicola Chang in a fiercely fought ten-way auction over the course of Frankfurt Book Fair. Publication is set for Spring 2026 in the UK and US.

US rights were acquired by Marie Pantojan of Random House after a nine-way auction with Anita Chong and Kelly Thompson of McClelland & Stewart co-publishing in Canada. German rights were pre-empted by Rowohlt within 24 hours of submission, with further translation rights in the Netherlands (Ambo Anthos), Spain (Urano World), Italy (Sellerio), Latvia (Zvaigzne) and Ukraine (Zhorzh) now sold.

The novel’s synopsis states: “Yrsa is tired: of her PhD, of the undergraduates she teaches, of the useless or manipulative men in the world. When she flicks a bee into one such man’s San Pellegrino, she has no idea what she’s starting. But that one half-accidental murder awakens a taste for more, and suddenly Yrsa is alive.”

Jo Thompson said: “Imani’s writing is wickedly funny and intelligent. This is a galloping novel about female rage – a serial killer finding her calling – but it’s also a penetrating take on race and justice which deeply rewards and surprises at every turn.”

Imani Thompson said: “I wrote this novel because I wanted to explore race and rage in a way that subverted tropes and stereotypes, and also felt relatable. As such, I’m very happy that people have loved my vengeful protagonist as much as I do. Both Jo and Marie have such exciting visions for the book, and I can’t wait to work with them towards publication.”

We are delighted to see Claudia Roden’s A Book of Middle Eastern Food chosen by The New York Times as one of the 25 most influential cookbooks of the last 100 years. A Book of Middle Eastern Food was first published in 1968, and Claudia Roden has since been credited as having a founding role in introducing Middle Eastern food to Britain and the United States. We are overjoyed to see her monumental work recognised in this way.

The cookbook was chosen by the NYT by a panel of experts, who spent many hours narrowing down the cookbooks of the last century. In making their decision, they “priotized influence – how has a book affected the way we eat, cook, think, talk, photograph and write about food?”.

In explaining their decision to include A Book of Middle Eastern Food, Jessica Battilana writes in the NYT’s article:

“Half a century ago, as remains the case today, the act of writing about the Middle East was, in Claudia Roden’s words, “loaded with explosive emotion.” And yet, in her first cookbook — released in the US in 1972 — she highlighted the similarities among the region’s seemingly disparate cultures with recipes like lentil-and-onion mujadara and date-stuffed ma’amoul cookies. In the process, she also introduced many Westerners to the vibrant food of her youth. Born in Cairo, Roden resettled with her family in London in the 1950s, after they were expelled, along with all Jews, from Egypt. There, she began recording her recipes in an attempt to preserve her heritage. The book presents these dishes in an evocative, lyrical context; introducing her recipe for ta’amia (as falafel is known in Egypt), she recalls visiting relatives who used a rope to lower a basket to the cafe beneath their apartment, where it would be filled with a “haul of fresh ta’amia, sometimes nestling in the pouch of warm, newly baked Arab bread.” A revised and expanded version, now titled “The New Book of Middle Eastern Food,” was published in 1985, then updated again in 2000, inspiring ever more chefs, including the London restaurateur Yotam Ottolenghi, who counts Roden as a major influence. But at its core, the book remains a love letter from a homesick daughter to her place of birth.”

In excerpts from their discussions and conversations on which books to include, another panellist also referred to the book as “a monumental work of scholarship that paved the way for a larger understanding of Middle Eastern food. So often the way foods that aren’t from the West enter the West is through hole-in-the wall restaurants and this sort of cheap exoticism. Cookbooks offer something different — suddenly everyone can cook these dishes at home … it shifts them from the place of “other” to your own place.”

Read more about the panel’s choices here. Our congratulations to Claudia, whose work continues to be honoured for its pioneering excellence.

We’re so excited to announce that The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi has been shortlisted for the Kitschies awards’ Golden Tentacle.

The Kitschies are the prize for progressive, intelligent and entertaining novels that contain elements of the speculative or fantastic. Founded in 2008, The Kitschies are a juried prize, awarded annually in a number of categories, including novel, debut novel and cover art. The Golden Tentacle is awarded to the debut novel that best fits the Kitschies’ criteria.

The winners will be announced on 24 June 2025, but in the meantime check out the full shortlist here.

Robert Macfarlane’s new children’s book, The World To Come, is one of two children’s titles to be shortlisted for Foyles Book of the Year 2024.

The World to Come is the first book to be borne out of the creative collaboration between Robert Macfarlane and Johnny Flynn. The lyrics of their song of the same title has been transformed into a wonderful read-aloud text that sings with a love of words and rhythm with stunning illustrations by Emily Sutton to create a picture book filled with hope and wonder.

The award features one fiction, one non-fiction and one children’s and young adult book. These three winning titles will be announced on 21st November.

We’re beyond thrilled to announce that Kate Morton’s Homecoming, Mich Herron’s The Secret Hours, Jonathan Kennedy’s Pathogenesis, Jacqueline Crooks’s Fire Rush, and Anthony Bale’s A Travel Guide To The Middle Ages have all been chosen by Waterstones for their best paperbacks of the 2024.

We’re thrilled to share that Raymond Antrobus has been shortlisted for the 2024 T.S. Eliot Prize for his latest poetry collection, Signs, Music. Among the 10 nominees were the posthumous debut collection, Adam, by Gboyega Odubanjo and Scattered Snows, to the North by American poet, Carl Phillips.

Judges, Mimi Khalvati, Anthony Joseph and Hannah Sullivan chose the shortlist from 187 poetry collections submitted by British and Irish publishers. Chair of the judging panel Mimi Khalvati said: “Our shortlisted poets are wonderfully diverse in style, theme and idiom, embracing myth, pop culture, sport, faith, trans identity, AI – a gamut of present and past life. Throughout these collections runs a strong strain of elegy, responding to our dark times with testaments of loss and grief. There is also humour, intimacy, joy and energy – poems to make you well up, to inspire you to write, and most of all to invite you to read.”

The T.S. Eliot Prize 2024 shortlist readings will take place on Sunday 12 January 2025 at 7pm in the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall as part of its literature programme. This is the largest annual poetry event in the UK. Tickets for the readings are now on sale and live stream will be available.

The winner of the 2024 prize will be announced at an award ceremony on Monday 13 January 2025.

We’re delighted to see that Killing Jericho by William Hussey has been shortlisted for the 2024 Polari Book Prize.

The Polari Prize is the UK’s first and largest LGBTQ+ book award. Established to promote writing that explores the LGBTQ+ experience, Polari also focuses on amplifying diverse voices through a series of literary events, including the regularly touring Polari Salon.

The winners’ ceremony will return to the British Library on Tuesday 29th November. For more information and to see the full shortlist, click here.

Trish Cooke has been brought on by director Lynette Linton (Blues for an Alabama Sky, Shifters) to provide new material for a revival of Michael Abbensetts’ era-defining comedy  Alterations. This modernised reworking will be the largest ever staging of the play, and will be running at the National Theatre 20 February — 5 April 2025.

In Alterations, Walker Holt has big dreams for his tailor’s shop, and an even bigger order to complete. Over the course of 24 hours he must work tirelessly to satisfy his new client’s impossible tailoring needs.

But as the night goes on, it’s not just the trouser hems that start to fray as tensions rise and Walker’s friendships and relationships are pushed to their limits. His success comes at a cost, but what price is he willing to pay?

Celebrating this award-winning writer, the reinvigorated version of his seminal work illuminates the Guyanese experience of 1970s London and the aspirations and sacrifices of the Windrush generation.

Book your tickets here.

Momtaza Mehri has won the inaugural Sky Arts Awards for poetry for her debut collection, Bad Diaspora Poems. She was awarded alongside other winners across the spectrum of the arts including Paul Murray who won in the literature category for his novel, The Bee Sting.

The awards were given in a ceremony at the Roundhouse, London, hosted by Joe Lycett, and attended by guests from the arts world including Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, Dame Sheila Hancock, Sir Lenny Henry, Grayson Perry, Myleene Klass, Caitlin Moran, David Morrissey and Oti Mabuse.

According to a press release from Sky, the new awards are building on ‘the legacy of the South Bank Sky Arts Awards’ and ‘the ceremony showcased the very best of British and Irish arts and culture.’

Read more about the winners and the ceremony here.

We’re delighted to announce that Charlotte Wood has been shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize for her remarkable novel, Stone Yard Devotional.

Published by Sceptre in the UK and Allen & Unwin in Australia, Stone Yard Devotional  is a fearless exploration of forgiveness, grief and the complicated beauty of female friendship.

Commenting on Stone Yard Devotional, this year’s judges said: ‘Sometimes a visitor becomes a resident, and a temporary retreat becomes permanent. This happens to the narrator in Stone Yard Devotional – a woman with seemingly solid connections to the world who changes her life and settles into a monastery in rural Australia. Yet no shelter is impermeable. The past, in the form of the returning bones of an old acquaintance, comes knocking at her door; the present, in the forms of a global pandemic and a local plague of mice and rats, demands her attention. The novel thrilled and chilled the judges – it’s a book we can’t wait to put into the hands of readers’.

The winner of the 2024 Booker Prize will be announced at Old Billingsgate in London on Tuesday 12 November. For more information and to see the full shortlist, click here.

The Centre, by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi (Pan Macmillan, Picador) and Chrysalis by Anna Metcalfe (Granta) have made the 6-person shortlist for this year’s Nota Bene Prize.

The Nota Bene Prize, run by Agile Ideas, an independent literary and marketing agency, “champions influential fiction and seeks to guide open-minded readers towards acclaimed works of fiction that have been recommended by trusted, passionate, and notable readers”.

Sophie Percival, digital manager at Agile Ideas, said: “Our 2024 shortlist is full of books that embody our ethos at the Nota Bene Prize—each shortlisted title offers a diverse and compelling story written by the rising talents of the industry, and we can’t wait to shine a light on these literary gems.

We’re thrilled that William Hussey‘s Killing Jericho and Kae Tempest‘s Divisible by Itself and One have been longlisted for the 2024 Polari Book Prize.

The Polari Prize is the UK’s first and largest LGBTQ+ book award. Established to promote writing that explores the LGBTQ+ experience, Polari also focuses on amplifying diverse voices through a series of literary events, including the regularly touring Polari Salon.

On this year’s longlist, judge Chris Gribble said: “Both the range and quality of submissions this year made the long listing task a real challenge for all of the judges. From graphic work to novels, essays to autobiography, poetry to history, the books that were submitted this year turned our minds outwards, backwards and forwards. We were shown new tellings of the past, had fresh light cast on our current times and were given glances of the future that we won’t forget in a hurry.”

The shortlist will be announced on Monday 30 September and the winners’ ceremony will return to the British Library on Tuesday 29th November. For more information and to see the full longlist, click here.

We’re excited to announce that Stephen Buoro’sThe Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa, Anna Metcalfe‘s Chrysalis and Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi‘s The Centre have been longlisted for the 2024 Nota Bene Prize. This is the fifth year of the prize and the 2024 longlist features 25 thought-provoking and relatable reads.

The Nota Bene Prize focuses on ‘thought-provoking and relatable reads that have received organic, word-of-mouth recognition’. It aims to champion ‘influential fiction’ and celebrate ‘the power of the reading community.’ Titles are voted on by ‘Notable Readers’ made up of  readers, authors, booksellers, and content creators.

The shortlist will announced later this month. Check out the full longlist here.

We are so pleased to see that Mick Herron and Jacqueline Crooks were among the 42 new Royal Society of Literature (RSL) fellows announced for 2024.

The new honorary fellows were announced at an event held at the Garden Museum this week, in recognition of ‘individuals who have made a significant contribution to the advancement of literature in the UK, or who have rendered special service to the RSL.’

We are delighted for Mick and Jacqueline, who are both so deserving of this recognition. Read more here.

Wales Book of the Year is an annual national award run by Literature Wales to celebrate and platform talented Welsh writers who excel in their fields in both English and Welsh. There are a total of 12 awards, 4 category awards in both languages.

This year’s overall winners are Sarn Helen by Tom Bullough (Granta Publications) Sut i Ddofi Corryn by Mari George (Sebra).

Sarn Helen, which is illustrated by the award-winning Jackie Morris, won the Creative Non-Fiction Award and Overall Wales Book of the Year 2024. Meanwhile, Skrimsli by Nicola Davies (Firefly Press) was awarded The Bute Energy Children and Young People Award.

We’re excited to announce that Jacqueline Crooks and Momtaza Mehri have won awards for the 2024 Society of Authors (SoA) awards. They were among the 31 winners in this year’s awards which included prose, poetry and children’s literature selections and shortlisted DHA authors, Edward Hogan, Stephen Buoro, and Santanu Bhattacharya.

Crooks’ novel, Fire Rush won the Paul Torday Memorial Prize beating out Justine Gilbert’s Daisy Chain, Fran Hill’s Cuckoo in the Nest, Hilary Taylor’s Sea Defences, and Michelene Wandor’s Orfeo’s Last Act. The prize is awarded to a first novel by a writer over 60. The prize fund is £4,000 and includes a set of the collected works of British writer Paul Torday. Judge Trevor Wood said: ‘An exemplary debut novel that somehow manages to combine politics, romance, thrills, music and a coming-of-age story into one entirely cohesive whole. It takes you from London to Jamaica, via Bristol, each setting beautifully drawn, and captures the sheer exhilaration of both dub reggae and the dance scene it inspired. A musical, lyrical and enchanting treat.’

Presented for published works of fiction, non-fiction or poetry by writers under 30, the Somerset Maugham awards were presented to five winners including Momtaza Mehri for her debut poetry collection, Bad Diaspora Poems. Winners are awarded £3,200 each. The other winners were Iona Lee, Cecile Pin, Phoenicia Rogerson, and Katherine Pangonis. On the winners, the judges, Akeem Balogun, Bhanu Kapil, and Ardashir Vakil said: ‘This year’s Somerset Maugham Award shortlist was made up of young voices who used poetry, non-fiction, fiction, or other forms entirely, to explore history in unique fashions and to tell stories that document the present, reveal the author’s psyche, delve deep into our emotions and take us down roads of imaginative brilliance. We encourage more presses and imprints to submit works next year, to expand the possibilities of this prize.’

Read more about the winners here.

In partnership with David Higham Associates (DHA) and The Future Bookshelf, Hachette UK has opened submissions for its third cohort of the free development programme, Grow Your Story.

Launched in 2020 by Thrive, Grow Your Story provides guidance to 10 unagented fiction writers who identify as LGBTQ+ and have not been traditionally published.  This year’s chosen writers will receive mentorship from a Hachette UK editor and a DHA agent, as well as a series of online workshops run by industry professionals and open day at Hachette UK’s London office in 2025.

The final 10 writers will be selected by a judging panel comprised of authors Laura Kay (Headline) and C L Clark (Little, Brown), DHA agent Sara Langham and Cal Kenny, Little, Brown commissioning editor for fiction.

Speaking on the programme, DHA’s Sara Langham said: ‘We are thrilled at DHA to be supporting the Grow Your Story initiative again, this year on behalf of the Pride network. We’re hugely looking forward to collaborating with Hachette and Pride on this exciting and important venture and can’t wait to read everyone’s submissions.’

To apply, send a 3,000 word sample of your work, a short description of your novel and a brief writer profile here. Submissions will close on Sunday 14 July.

DHA’s Managing Director, Lizzy Kremer is featured on the cover of the latest issue of The Bookseller, to mark DHA’s recent rebrand and the agency’s upcoming 90th birthday. Lizzy celebrated the achievements of DHA clients and agents and discussed the future of the business. Lizzy was also asked about her views on some of the significant recent developments in the publishing industry, including the launch of audiobooks on Spotify and the use of AI in publishing.

On Spotify, Lizzy reaffirmed DHA’s approach of “see[ing] ourselves as allies with publishers in their success” and in encouraging competitive markets, but stressed the need to look closely at data to assess the impact of Spotify on other format sales. In particular, Lizzy emphasised her concerns about the loss of the connection between the desire to read and the act of purchase because the business is economically dependent on book sales not on ‘pages read’. As such, while she was “in favour of the strategic use of platforms”, she believes that “when the platform becomes king, that is usually to the disadvantage of the creator.” This has fed into DHA’s current author-centred response to the Spotify deals made by publishers.

Lizzy also set out her views about the impact of AI on the publishing industry, affirming unequivocally that “protecting copyright and protecting creators” is “absolutely fundamental to our livelihoods.” As such, while publishers were in theory free to adapt their systems to use AI in their services if they wished, DHA remains “guarded” and concerned by any software that uses or has used authors’ work to create competitive works or to replace the work of human creators.

This is in line with Lizzy’s assertion throughout her interview that what lies at the absolute core at DHA is ”unseen advocacy”, and “our absolute responsibility to protect [our authors]”, no matter how big or small their deals. Recognising that writers are not just creators but “business partners”, Lizzy also maintained that “not to be numerate and be able to interrogate the business of publishing seems … derelict.”

As for the future of the business, Lizzy expressed her immense pride in all of her DHA colleagues and the “incredible systems” and efficiency that the agency maintains, which collectively contribute to sustaining the agency’s stability and success. “Whenever I go to …a publishing party,” Lizzy says, “I just end up talking about all my colleagues and how… proud I am of everything they do.”

Read Lizzy’s full interview here.

We’re delighted to see Lucy Holland and Lynsey May on the ILX 10: Rising Stars of UK Writing list.

Created by the National Centre for Writing, and supported by the British Council and Arts Council England, the ILX10 list showcases ten exciting, dynamic, and thought-provoking early-career writers based in the UK whose work has the powerful potential to speak to and engage with global literary audiences.

Speaking on the list Head of Programmes & Creative Engagement at NCW, Holly Ainley, said:

‘This selection is intended to represent to our international community just how pluralistic, diverse, and globally engaged the UK literature scene is. We hope the list will act as a springboard for new conversations, partnerships, and projects for ILX participants and beyond. Teaming up with our fellow UNESCO Cities of Literature here in the UK meant we could draw on their expertise and geographical spread to ensure we created as distinctive and wide-ranging a list as possible.’

Lynsey May’s debut novel, Weak Teeth, was published by Polygon in May 2023 and her short fiction has been published in various journals and anthologies, including The Stinging Fly, Gutter, New Writing Scotland and Banshee.

Lucy Holland is the author of The Times bestselling, Sistersong, which was a finalist for the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award and the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 2022. Her second historical fantasy novel, Song of the Huntress, was published by Pan Macmillan in 2024.

For more information on the ILX10 and the full list, click here.

Tan Twan Eng’s The House of Doors has been shortlisted for The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.

Honouring the achievements of the founding father of the historical novel, the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction is one of the most prestigious literary prizes in the world. With a total value of over £30,000, and now in its fifteenth year, it is unique for rewarding writing of exceptional quality which is set in the past.

The WSP judging panel is chaired by Katie Grant, and comprises James Holloway, Elizabeth Laird, James Naughtie, Kirsty Wark, and Saira Shah.

We’re excited to announce that four David Higham authors have selected for the The Society of Authors (SoA) awards 2024. This years celebrated selection includes prose, poetry and children’s literature and includes titles from Edward Hogan, Stephen Buoro, Santanu Bhattacharya, and Jacqueline Crooks.

Edward Hogan’s short story, ‘Little Green Man’ has been shortlisted for the ALCS Tom-Gallon Trust Award. On this year’s shortlist, Judge Peter Hobbs said: ‘We’re all immensely proud of the range and quality of our shortlist. It was a long and hard-fought process working our way down to these five outstanding examples of the form, which showcase the ways the short story can distil and contain whole lives and worlds.’

Presented for a first novel by a writer under 35, this year’s Betty Trask Prize shortlist features Stephen Buoro for The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa. On the shortlist, judge Anjali Joseph commented: ‘All of the shortlisted novels delighted us with their freshness and each had a voice that was distinctively and recognisably its own.’

Santanu Bhattacharya‘s One Small Voice has been shortlisted for The Gordon Bowker Volcano Prize. Judged by Aamer Hussein, Yara Rodrigues Fowler and Kerry Young, this award is given to a UK or Irish writer, or a writer currently resident in those countries, for a novel focusing on the experience of travel away from home. Kerry Young said of the book: “Santanu Bhattacharya’s India-set One Small Voice triumphs the resilience of the human spirit from beginning to end.”

Judged by Anietie Isong, Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott, Rebecca Foster, Gonzalo C. Garcia and Rónán Hession, the McKitterick Prize’s shortlist features Fire Rush by Jacqueline Crooks. Speaking on the shortlist, Rónán Hession said: ‘It is exciting to judge a prize and encounter such a depth of talent. Though hugely varied in subject matter and style, the writers on the shortlist all impressed me with the clarity of their creative vision and their narrative authority on the page.’

Read more about all the SOA shortlists here.

Wild Air by James Macdonald Lockhart has been selected from a longlist of 12 titles to be shortlisted for the 2023 Highland Book Prize.

Presented by the Highland Society of London, and facilitated by Moniack Mhor, Scotland’s Creative Writing Centre, and with funding from the William Grant Foundation for public engagement, this annual award celebrates the finest published work that is created in, or about, the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. The prize aims to recognise the literary talent of the region, and the rich and diverse work inspired by its culture, heritage, and landscape.

Read the full shortlist here.

Maz Evans and William Hussey have won 2024 Fingerprint Awards at this year’s Capital Crime Festival.  The Fingerprint Awards are reader-chosen awards which celebrate excellence in international crime and thriller writing.

Maz Evan’s Over My Dead Body was named Crime Audio-Book of the Year and William Hussey’s Killing Jericho won Genre-Busting Crime Book of the Year.

On this years awards, Capital Crime Festival director Lizzie Dube said: “I’m truly overwhelmed by the incredible support from readers at this year’s festival. Despite it being only nine months since our last event, we’ve welcomed more visitors than ever before, with attendees increasing by an impressive 38%. This remarkable turnout shows just how much love for the crime and thriller genres continues to grow, and that Capital Crime is here to stay.”

We’re delighted to announce that Maz Evans’ Over My Dead Body, Mick Herron’s The Secret Hours, and Michelle Teahan’s Go Seek have been shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Dagger Awards.

Founded in 1953, the Crime Writers’ Association aims to support, promote and celebrate writers of crime fiction and non-fiction. The CWA daggers are awarded to books in historical, thriller, translated, debut, best of the year (Gold) in fiction and non-fiction categories.

Mick Herron’s The Secret Hours and Maz Evans’ Over My Dead Body have been shortlisted for the prestigious Gold Dagger, which is given to the overall best crime novel of the year. Michelle Teahan’s Go Seek has been shortlisted for the ILP John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger, which is awarded to the best crime novel by a first-time author.

All the Dagger winners will be announced on 4 July 2024 at the Daggers Dinner. In the meantime, you can pick up Over My Dead Body here, The Secret Hours here, and Go Seek here.

We’re delighted to see that Mick Herron‘s The Secret Hours, Val McDermid‘s Past Lying,  William Hussey‘s Killing Jericho, and Simon Mason‘s The Broken Afternoon have been longlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2024.

The award, now in its 20th year, celebrates excellence, originality and the very best in crime fiction from UK and Irish authors. A highlight in the literary calendar, past winners include Clare Mackintosh, Mick Herron, Val McDermid and Lee Child. This year’s longlist features a wide range of crime fiction, including “stories that transport readers from the burning heat of the Chihuahuan Desert to the chill of 1990’s Berlin, from down-at-heel Blackpool to the splendour of Georgian London,” organisers said.

Crime fiction fans are now invited to vote for their favourite novels here to  decide which six titles make the shortlist. Voting closes on 16 May, with the shortlist announced on 13 June. The winner will be revealed on the opening night of Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival on 18 July, receiving £3,000 and a handmade, engraved beer barrel provided by T&R Theakston Ltd.

Benjamin Myers‘s Cuddy has been shortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize, annual award of £10,000 for a distinguished work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry, evoking the spirit of a place.

This year marks the prize’s 20th anniversary. First awarded in 2004, the premise and broad remit of the Prize creates unique lists of outstanding works and authors that you would not usually find sitting side by side. Previous winners include Lea Ypi, Edmund de Waal and Hisham Matar.

From 194 entries to 14 longlisted titles, Cuddy is one of the final 6 shortlisted books chosen by judges Jan Carson, Xialou Guo, and Francis Spufford.

We are thrilled to announce that Jason Allen-Paisant’s TS Eliot Prize winning collection Self-Portrait as Othello, and Jacqueline Crooks’ mesmerising and inventive debut novel Fire Rush have both been shortlisted for the prestigious Jhalak Prize for 2024.

Judged by Anni Domingo, Stella Oni and Denise Saul, this year’s prize features a wide variety of styles and genres across fiction, non-fiction, short stories and poetry.

Prize director Sunny Singh said of this year’s shortlist: “Once again, Jhalak Prize shortlists are testaments to the extraordinary range and quality of work being produced by writers of colour in contemporary Britain. I am particularly struck by the bold experiments in form and genre, courageous explorations of themes and ideas and the incredible variety of creative practice demonstrated by our shortlistees. Our 2022 shortlists are made up of books to be read and re-read, and remembered and cherished far into the future.”

The winners will be announced on 30 May. In the meantime you can pick up a copy of Fire Rush here, and Self-Portrait as Othello here, or in all good bookshops.

We are thrilled to announce that Kate Morton, Maz Evans, Mick Herron and Michelle Teahan have been longlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Dagger Awards.

Mick Herron’s The Secret Hours, Maz Evans’ Over My Dead Body, and Kate Morton’s Homecoming have all been longlisted for the prestigious Gold Dagger, which is awarded for the best crime novel of the year.

Michelle Teahan’s gripping  debut Go Seek has been longlisted for The Ilp John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger, which highlights the best debut novels of the year.

CWA chair Vaseem Khan said of this year’s longlists: “Our independent panels of expert judges have mulled, cogitated, debated, and, when all else has failed, challenged each other to duels, in their sterling efforts to pick longlists from the incredible array of books submitted to each Dagger. The Daggers are the gold standard of awards in the genre, and Dagger recognition has often served as a stepping stone for careers. More importantly, a Dagger longlisting means that genre readers can be assured of quality.”

The CWA shortlists will be announced at a reception at CrimeFest in Bristol on Friday 10 May and the winners will be announced on 4 July at the Daggers Dinner. In the meantime, you can pick up a copy of Homecoming here, Over My Dead Body here, The Secret Hours here, and Go Seek here.

Santanu Bhattacharya‘s One Small Voice (Fig Tree) and Jacqueline Crooks’ Fire Rush (Jonathan Cape) are two of the six titles shortlisted for this Authors’ Book Club Best Debut First Award.

The prize of £2,500 aims to support UK-based authors, publishers and agents and the winning novel must originate in the UK and not have been published anywhere else in the world before its UK publication.

The winning novel will be selected by journalist and broadcaster Samira Ahmed — a guest adjudicator — and announced at a dinner at the National Liberal Club in London on 22 May 2024.

Elizabeth McCracken’s The Hero of This Book (Jonathan Cape) has won the Wingate Literary Prize, which is awarded each year to the best fiction or non-fiction book ‘to translate the idea of Jewishness to the general reader’. The brilliantly original, tender and comic novel takes the author-narrator’s Jewish mother as its subject, and interrogates grief, family relationships and what it means to write another’s life.

The judging panel, comprised of Benjamin Markovits, Ashley Hickson-Lovence, Natasha Solomons and Rabbi Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz, said of the book: ‘In a timely and timeless fashion, McCracken’s powerful writing lets you be privy to secrets you just want to shout about. A thoroughly involving read that wrestles with memory, illness, place and identity; The Hero of This Book is moving in every sense.’

Also shortlisted for the prize were Your Hearts, Your Scars by Adina Talve-Goodman, The Dissident by Paul Goldberg, Still Pictures by Janet Malcolm, Kosher Soul by Michael Twitty, and One Hundred Saturdays by Michael Frank.

Jacqueline Wilson returns to the Girls series in a new adult novel, Think Again, publishing in September 2024 with Transworld. The novel brings back some of her most memorable characters and follows them through the trials and tribulations of adult life.

In 1997, Jacqueline Wilson published the first title, Girls in Love, in what was to become a best-selling four book series charting the lives, loves and tribulations of three teenage friends, Ellie, Magda and Nadine.  Now, writing for adult readers, Jacqueline Wilson revisits her main characters as they navigate their lives as late thirty-somethings.

Being an adult isn’t quite what Ellie Allard dreamed it would be when she was 14 years old. Though she’s got her beautiful daughter Lottie, life-long best friends Magda and Nadine and her trusty cat Stella, her love life is non-existent and she feels like she’s been living on auto-pilot, just grateful to be able to afford the rent on her pokey little flat. But this year, on her birthday, the universe seems to decide it’s time for all that to change – whether Ellie wants it to or not. As she navigates new, exciting and often choppy waters, she’s about to discover that life will never stop surprising you – if only you let it.

The Girls novels will be reissued by their original publisher, Transworld.

The McDermid Debut Award for new crime writers has been launched by Harrogate Festival, named after ‘Queen of Crime’, Val McDermid. The new prize will be open to authors from the UK and Ireland whose debut novels have been published for the first time between 1st May 2023 and 30th April 2024, with the first winner to be announced at the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in June 2024.

The organisers of the McDermid Debut Award said: “Named in recognition of world-famous crime writer Val McDermid, who co-founded the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in 2003 and whose dedication to fostering new voices in crime fiction through the New Blood panel is legendary, this new award seeks to continue her legacy, celebrating and platforming the best debut crime writers in the UK.”

Val said: “Curating the New Blood panel over 20 years exposed me to an extraordinary range of crime fiction I might otherwise have missed. I’m hoping that this new award will do the same for the army of avid readers out there looking for new talent.”

We are delighted to see Val’s achievements and dedication to amplifying the voices of new crime writers honoured through the Prize. Read more about it here.

Having Spent Life Seeking, the groundbreaking new novel by award-winning writer and musician Kae Tempest, has been acquired from Nicola Chang by Jonathan Cape in a competitive seven-way auction. Publishing in 2026, Having Spent Life Seeking is the artist’s first novel in nearly ten years, exploring love and courage, the human will to change and the power of redemption and compassion.

“It is 2025. Rothko has been out of prison for six months and today is the first day of the rest of their life, a life which they are trying to put back together after losing sight of it 20 years ago. But everywhere they turn, they keep coming up against the past.

Back in 2005, 15-year-old Rothko is on the verge of getting kicked out of school. Nothing in their life makes sense to them apart from Dionne Troy – the girl from school who kisses Rothko like there’s nothing wrong with them. A couple of wrong turns set in motion a chain of events that will dictate the course of Rothko’s life – and the lives of those around them – forever.”

Tempest said: “I’ve given everything to this novel. It’s precious to me and I was so protective over the characters as I was writing it, but Cape felt like the perfect home for them, for the book and for me.”

Marošević said: “Having Spent Life Seeking is a landmark work of British fiction, a liberatory novel about what it means for a person to be allowed to transform, come into themselves and love. This is a novel that transcends convention and commands language into new, supple, capacious forms and I know it will heal hearts and change lives. We’re so proud to welcome Kae to Jonathan Cape and Vintage.”

Photo credit: Wolfgang Tillmans

The Secret Hours by Mick Herron has been shortlisted in the crime and thriller category at The British Book Awards 2024! Mick is one of five authors, including Richard Osman and Robert Galbraith, to be shortlisted in the category. The Secret Hours, which was published in 2023 and became an instant Sunday Times Bestseller, was deservedly acclaimed by critics and readers alike upon publication, and has been ever since. A gripping standalone thriller, it is the perfect entry-point to Mick Herron’s writing, while also providing a delight for existing Slough House fans.

The annual British Book Awards are described as ‘a celebration of books and all who make them’. They honour some of the most beloved and best-selling books of the year, as well as those individuals behind the scenes who bring them to readers, and we are thrilled to see The Secret Hours on this year’s shortlist. The editor of The Bookseller Philip Jones said of the shortlist: ‘Readers were the real winners this year, with titles which demonstrated the remarkable virtuosity of the book business.’

The ceremony to announce the winners will take place on 13th May 2024. See the full shortlists here.

We are immensely proud of Kathryn Scanlan, who has won the £10,000 Gordon Burn Prize for Kick the Latch—a poised and vivid novel about one woman’s life at the race track, based on transcribed interviews with horse trainer, Sonia. Published by Daunt Books in the UK, and New Directions in the US, Kick the Latch was described by the judges as “a rare beast, setting out with a premise that feels neatly bordered but revealing itself almost immediately to be a desperately consumable piece of literature, pushing boundaries in terms of form and structure but never becoming inaccessible”, and “a thundering achievement, liberated from hard lines of genre and form by a laser focus on not just excavation but building of voice”.

The Gordon Burn Prize recognises literature that is forward-thinking and fearless in its ambition and execution, often playing with style, pushing boundaries, crossing genres or challenging readers’ expectations. Founded in 2012 by New Writing North, Faber & Faber and the Gordon Burn Trust, it has built a reputation for identifying and celebrating brilliant books that often find their readers outside the mainstream.

Kick the Latch is available from all good bookstores, and you can also find it online here.

Stephen Buoro’s The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa, Santanu Bhattacharya’s One Small Voice and Jacqueline Crooks‘ Fire Rush have been longlisted for the 70th Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award.

Open to any debut novel written in English, the £2,500 Authors’ Club Best First Novel prize aims to support UK-based authors, publishers and agents. Commenting on this year’s longlist, the judging panel chair Lucy Popescu said: ‘There are fresh perspectives on the coming-of-age narrative and a thrilling range of themes, from corruption and religious intolerance, through neurodiversity and masculinity, loss and bereavement, wealth and privilege, obsession and desire, to ghosts and superstition.’

The shortlist will be announced on 25 March at the National Liberal Club in London, and the winner will be announced on 22 May. To see the full longlist, click here.

Mick Herron has been announced as a finalist in the Best Hardcover Novel category at the ITW (International Thriller Writers) Thriller Awards for 2024. This category honours the best hardcover thriller of the year, and Mick has been nominated for his latest novel, The Secret Hours, a gripping standalone thriller and an unmissable read for Slough House fans, which was an instant Sunday Times Bestseller upon its publication in 2023.

The winners will be announced at ThrillerFest XIX on 1st June 2024 at the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel, New York City. To see the other categories and finalists, click here.

Momtaza Mehri has been shortlisted for the Charlotte Aitken Young  Writer of the Year Award. Her debut poetry collection, Bad Diaspora Poems,  confronts ideas around diaspora, migration and home through lyric, prose and text messages. Since its publication in 2023, the collection has won the Eric Gregory Award and the 2023 Forward Prize for Best First Collection.

Chair of judges Johanna Thomas-Corr said: ‘We have found four very different writers who are injecting real energy and vitality into the literary scene. What impressed me most was their attentiveness to the world around them and their commitment to telling complex and often tough truths, as well as the unique ways in which each has made space for humour in their work. They have all shown daring and gumption.’

The winner will be announced in a ceremony on 19 March. To see the full shortlist, click here.

Matrescence by Lucy Jones has been longlisted for the first-ever Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction.

The Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction is a major new annual book prize that celebrates exceptional narrative non-fiction by women. The winner will receive £30,000 and will be chosen based on three core tenets, which mirror its sister fiction prize: excellence, originality and accessibility.

Published by Allen Lane, Matrescence draws on new research across various fields – neuroscience and evolutionary biology; psychoanalysis and existential therapy; sociology, economics and ecology – to shows how the changes in the maternal mind, brain and body are far more profound, wild and enduring than we have been led to believe. Jones reveals the dangerous consequences of our neglect of the maternal experience and interrogates the patriarchal and capitalist systems that have created the untenable situation mothers face today.

It is an urgent examination of the modern institution of motherhood, which seeks to unshackle all parents from oppressive social norms. As it deepens our understanding of matrescence, it raises vital questions about motherhood and femininity; interdependence and individual identity; as well as about our relationships with each other and the living world.

Benjamin Myers’ Cuddy and Tan Twan Eng’s The House of Doors have been longlisted for The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. Honouring the achievements of the founding father of the historical novel, the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction is one of the most prestigious literary prizes in the world. With a total value of over £30,000, and now in its fifteenth year, it is unique for rewarding writing of exceptional quality which is set in the past.

Twan Eng’s The House of Doors is an atmospheric tale of love, betrayal and morality in 1920s Penang, with Willie Somerset Maugham at its centre, exploring the vagaries of his life, his unique creativity, and the personal and political tensions at play in the sultry colony. Published by Bloomsbury, Cuddy is a bold and experimental retelling of the story of St Cuthbert, unofficial patron saint of the North of England — told in four parts, spanning the seventh century to present day.

The Walter Scott Prize shortlist will be announced in May. To see the full longlist, click here.

Momtaza Mehri and Jason Allen-Paisant have both been awarded a Forward Prize for their respective collections Bad Diaspora Poems and Self-Portrait as Othello.

Bernardine Evaristo, the chair of judges, called Bad Diaspora Poems ‘an exceptional debut collection’ that ‘reinvigorates ideas around diaspora, migration and home’, and termed Jason’s book: ‘Playful, intimate and allusive… a refreshing mash-up of languages that regenerate poetry so that it feels freshly minted.’

The Blue Hour, a new unmissable thriller by globally best-selling writer Paula Hawkins, will be published by Transworld in the UK and by Mariner in the US.

The thriller begins with the discovery that an exhibited sculpture, created by an infamous artist whose notoriously unfaithful husband disappeared after visiting her twenty years ago, contains human remains. It is a discovery that will intimately connect three people and unveil a web of secrets and lies. The Blue Hour recalls the elegant psychological intrigue of Shirley Jackson and Patricia Highsmith and cements Hawkins’s place among the very best of our most nuanced, powerful and stylish storytellers.

International rights have also been sold by DHA in Canada (Doubleday), France (Sonatine), Spain (Planeta), Germany (dtv), Catalan (Columna), Portugal (PRH), Norway (Cappelen Damm), Finland (Otava), The Netherlands (HarperCollins Holland), and Hungary (Magnolia), with rights currently under offer in Italy, Romania, Slovakia, and Brazil.

The Blue Hour is now available for pre-order, and will be publishing internationally on 8th October 2024.

Divisible by Itself and One, a powerful new collection from our foremost truth-teller Kae Tempest, has been longlisted for the 2024 Dylan Thomas Prize.

Ruminative, wise, with a newer, more contemplative and metaphysical note running through it, Divisible by Itself and One is a book engaged with the big questions and the emotional states in which we live and create.

Throughout the poems, ideas of form – of the body, gender, and in nature – resurface and resolve. Stories of transformation hold a central place in Tempest’s work, their best to date; here, the poet considers the changes that are sometimes required to be oneself.

Our clients Jennifer Atkins, Sarah Bernstein, Sophie Mackintosh, Saba Sams and Anna Metcalf have been named Granta Best of Young British Novelists this year.

Every ten years since 1983, Granta magazine has appointed a panel of judges to select the twenty British novelists under the age of forty that promise to be the most significant of their generation. Each list shines a spotlight on the literary stars of the future, announcing a set of extraordinary new talents, with new ways of seeing the world, and revealing new directions in British culture.

On the 2023 judging panel were writers Tash Aw, Rachel Cusk, Brian Dillon and Helen Oyeyemi, chaired by Granta editor Sigrid Rausing.

Tan Twan Eng has been longlisted for The Booker Prize for his masterful novel of public morality and private truth, The House of Doors.

Published by Canongate in the UK and Bloomsbury in the US, the translation rights have been sold in Arabic, Croatian, Dutch, Estonian, French, Italian, Spanish, and German.  Twan will follow his tour of the UK and Asia this summer with a tour of America in the fall.

Twan’s first book The Gift of Rain was longlisted for the 2007 Man Booker Prize and his second The Garden of Evening Mists was also shortlisted for the Man Booker and won the 2012 Man Asia Literary Prize.

We’re thrilled to see Benjamin Myers’ success at The Goldsmith’s Prize where he won the £10,000 prize for Cuddy (Bloomsbury).

Chair of Judges, Tom Lee, said that ‘the ambition, the risk, the virtuosity’ of Cuddy is what marked it as this year’s winner. Fellow judge and assistant culture editor at the New Statesman, Ellen Peirson-Hagger, wrote that the book ‘upends preconceptions of the ‘historical novel’’ in her piece for the magazine.

This comes only a few days after The Bookseller announced Ben’s new book, Rare Singles.

We’re delighted to see Julian Jackson’s France on Trial on this year’s Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize shortlist.

Published by Allen Lane, France on Trial uses Pétain’s three-week trial as a lens through which to examine the central crisis of twentieth-century French history – the defeat of 1940, the signing of the armistice and Vichy’s policy of collaboration – what the main prosecutor Mornet called ‘four years to erase from our history’.

Jason Allen-Paisant has won the T.S. Eliot prize for his moving and lyrical second collection, Self-Portrait as Othello.

Published by Carcanet Press, Self-Portrait as Othello refracts Allen-Paisant’s European travels and considers the Black male body, its presence, transgressiveness and vulnerabilities. Othello’s intertwined identities as ‘immigrant’ and ‘Black’, which often operate as mutually reinforcing vectors, speak to us in the landscape of twenty-first-century Europe.

The judges, Paul Muldoon, Sasha Dugdale and Denise Saul, described the collection as a work of ‘great imaginative capacity, freshness and technical flair’ and ‘a book to which readers will return for many years’.

Yewande Omotoso’s novel An Unusual Grief has been shortlisted for the 2023 SA Sunday Times Literary Awards.

Published by Jonathan Ball Publishers, An Unusual Grief is a bold and unflinching tale of one women’s unconventional approach to life and loss. The judges commented that An Unusual Grief  is ‘a brave and vivid story of a mother’s grief and attempts to uncover who her daughter was and what happened to her. Omotoso’s writing about trauma, loss and imperfection is outstanding.’

Congratulations to Kathryn Mannix on receiving the Increasing Understanding award from Demystifying Death Awards. The author of With The End in Mind commented for the Good Life, Good Death, Good Grief website:

‘Once people understand the process of dying, and its stages, I hope they will feel less afraid for themselves and the people they love, better able to be companions as their person is dying, and less startled or frightened by the unusual changes in consciousness and breathing noises that happen during dying. I get lots of lovely feedback from people whose change in understanding has helped them be better prepared, or to make sense of their experiences afterwards.’

Kathryn Scanlan has been shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award for her precise and startling novel Kick the Latch.

The judges described Scanlan’s novel as ‘a genre busting book that captures the raw energy of sporting passion.’

Stephen Buoro has been shortlisted for the inaugural Nero Book Awards in the debut fiction category for his playful and propulsive debut novel The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa, which the judges described as  ‘extraordinary, driven by a gloriously eccentric central character’, and ‘utterly compelling’.

Published by Bloomsbury, The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa has also been longlisted for the prestigious Aspen Words Literary Prize for 2023. Profound, exhilarating and highly original, this tragicomic novel is a stunning exploration of the contemporary African ‘condition’, the relentless infiltration of Western culture and, most of all, the ordinary but impossible challenges of coming of age in a turbulent world.

Sarah Bernstein’s urgent, darkly funny novel Study For Obedience has been shortlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize. Critics have been calling Bernstein’s novel ‘masterly’ (The Guardian) and ‘remarkable’ (Daily Telegraph).

The Booker Prize 2023 judges commented: ‘Study for Obedience is an absurdist, darkly funny novel about the rise of xenophobia, as seen through the eyes of a stranger in an unnamed town – or is it? Bernstein’s urgent, crystalline prose upsets all our expectations, and what transpires is a meditation on survival itself.’

Sarah Bernstein has been named the winner of the 2023 Giller Prize for her powerful novel, Study for Obedience.

From the judges: ‘The modernist experiment continues to burn incandescently in Sarah Bernstein’s slim novel, Study for Obedience. Bernstein asks the indelible question: what does a culture of subjugation, erasure, and dismissal of women produce? In this book, equal parts poisoned and sympathetic, Bernstein’s unnamed protagonist goes about exacting, in shockingly twisted ways, the price of all that the world has withheld from her. The prose refracts Javier Marias sometimes, at other times Samuel Beckett. It’s an unexpected and fanged book, and its own studied withholdings create a powerful mesmeric effect.’

Gao Xingjian has been named as one of the recipients of the Royal Society of Literature’s International Writers Awards for 2023. Since 2020, the award has recognised the contribution of writers across the globe to literature in English, and the power of literature to transcend borders to bring people together, with previous nominees including Annie Ernaux, Claudia Rankine, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Anne Carson and Javier Marias.

Kathryn Scanlan’s Kick the Latch and Benjamin Myers’s Cuddy have been longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize 2023, which was announced on the 7 December.

The Gordon Burn Prize recognises literature that is forward-thinking and fearless in its ambition and execution, often playing with style, pushing boundaries, crossing genres or challenging readers’ expectations.

Val McDermid, known for good reason as the ‘Queen of Crime’, has been announced as a new Vice President of Harrogate International Festivals, along with former DHA literary agent Jane Gregory, who represented Val before her retirement.

Val has been involved with Harrogate International Festivals for over twenty years, and she and Jane played a crucial role in the establishment of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival and its New Blood Panel for debut crime writers. Their efforts helped the festival to become one of the biggest of its kind, and have provided a platform for emerging talent in the crime fiction genre.

Val told The Bookseller, ‘I’m proud to continue that association and delighted to accept the invitation to become a vice-president of the festivals as we go from strength to strength.’

Photo credit: Charlotte Graham

Halik Kochanski won prestigious Wolfson History Prize for Resistance: The Underground War in Europe, 1939-1945, the first English-language history of resistance to study the whole of Europe.

The Prize celebrates the best history writing in the UK from the past year, and Kochanski was named the winner from a shortlist of five other works. David Cannadine, Chair of the Wolfson History Prize judges, said of the work: ‘This book does more than recount the past; it breathes life into forgotten voices and untold tales of bravery, illuminating the spirit of ordinary people who challenged oppression.’ See the full write-up here.

Claudia Roden was awarded her honorary degree from the University of London, which she received in Senate House.

The PhD was awarded officially for literature – at the ceremony they congratulated Claudia for her ‘role in introducing the food of the Middle East to the UK, influencing British culinary culture and sparking an interest in the academic study of food.’

Since being published in February 2023, Maame by Jessica George has been shortlisted three awards – the TikTok Book of the Year, the Audible Audiobook of the Year, and the GoodReads Debut and Fiction Book of the Year.

Published by Hodder & Stoughton, Maame is a deeply moving, achingly funny debut about finally finding where you belong.

Anthony Joseph won the T.S. Eliot prize for his moving collection, Sonnets for Albert.

Published by Bloomsbury, Sonnets for Albert returns to the autobiographical material explored in Anthony Joseph’s earlier collection Bird Head Son. In this follow-up, he weighs the impact of being the son of an absent, or mostly absent, father. Though these poems threaten to break under the weight of their emotions, they are always masterfully poised as the stylish man they depict.